1-4-3, seconds
by toughchick44
Summary: Time is a valuable thing, especially when lives are in the balance, so choosing to do the right thing isn't always the best thing for others. The group learns this in less than three minutes. Character death. Minor-ish Miles/Nora. Needed to write something angsty after 1x11 "The Stand".


"What's wrong?" She slid to a stop on her knees sending dead leaves flying everywhere but she didn't care he was in pain and she had to do something. He groaned and held his calf with an anguished expression, she knew what was wrong before he spoke and not a moment after did she know what she had to do.

"I think it's broken." Her eyes moved from his face to his very obviously broken lower leg, she knew what needed to be done but she also knew that there we're other options that were very in the high majority loss category; there didn't need to be any more blood loss, especially from her hands. When he didn't hear her rambling to him like she usually did when something bad happened he looked away from his leg and saw the idea in her eyes that she wasn't trying to hide.

"Nora, don't—"

"Miles, there is only one way to stop that bomb from going off with little blood loss and that means someone has to go in there and break the cord which will result in the second but less damaging bomb installed under it to go off and seeing as I'm the only one with bomb knowledge it has to be me. Plus Charlie and Aaron and Rachel are on their way now, all of you will be safe when I close those doors and stop the bomb." She placed her hand on the side of his face and stroked his cheek bone with her thumb.

"I have to do this." Her whispered words did nothing to comfort him. "We have less than two minutes." He pulled her forward after slipping his hand behind her neck and leaving a bloody trail following after it. They kissed with the knowledge that they were never going to see each other again but the small comfort they could give each other through this small passionate moment gave them something to remember. "A minute and fifteen seconds." She muttered when they pulled apart, their eyes locked for the last time before she pushed away and stood back up.

"Remember 1-4-3." With that she was sprinting towards the burning building with the still ticking bomb, when she was halfway across the field Charlie, Aaron, and Rachel arrived and started asking Miles what was going on, if he was okay.

"Where's Nora going?" He closed his eyes tightly and crashed his head back against the bark of the tree he was leaning against as the numbers decreased in his head.

_50 seconds_

"To stop the bomb."

Nora entered the building, closed the metal doors, and immediately stifled her coughing at the smoke and quickly headed for her quickly made and amateur looking bomb, she could have stopped it before it blew up but the building needed to be destroyed and this was the only way.

_42 seconds_

"What do you mean stop the bomb?"

"There has to be another way."

"There is no other way." In his head he was trying to convince himself of that but all he wanted to do was get up and go racing after her, broken leg be damned.

_26 seconds_

Nora pulled out her pliers and got to work slowly and effectively moving away the pieces one at a time as not to set it off prematurely. Finally she got to the cord she needed and reached the pliers down but she stopped a centimeter before it reached its destination.

_14 seconds_

Miles repeated the numbers in his head over and over again already knowing their meaning but it was the only way to help his ignorance to the situation.

1

(**I**)

4

(**Love**)

3

(**You**)

_11 seconds_

Deep breath to steady her hand, she opened the pliers and hovered the separate pieces on either side of the cord and started to repeat the numbers she had told Miles.

1

4

3

_7 seconds_

Together they thought, oblivious to the others thoughts but confident that they were thinking the same thing.

1

4

3

_I'm sorry Miles._

_I'm sorry Nora._

_2 seconds_

She pulled the sides together and with that the first bomb stopped and there was a moment's hesitation where the second bomb initiated before the only thing they heard was…

_BOOM_


End file.
